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Jimmie Johnson wins the Duralast Brakes "Brake in the Race" award at Martinsville in the Sprint Cup Series.

The award is given to the highest eligible driver in the running order at the time of the first caution of each race. He earned the award in the Goody’s Headache Relief Shot 500 at Martinsville Speedway. He started in second and finished in fifth place. Johnson is second in the 2013 Chase for the Sprint Cup standings.

Crash damage and a 38th-place finish contributed to a disappointing debut for Chase Elliott at Martinsville. He was running at the end of the race, but 73 laps off the pace in 38th.

The entire Hendrick Motorsports organization struggled in the STP 500 at times, however, and Elliott simply proved to not be immune to those problems. Elliott should be a better value in three weeks at Richmond, which is scheduled to be his second start in the Cup series.

Jamie McMurray finished 10th in the STP 500 and jumped one position in the standings to 15th.

McMurray has been slowly advancing up the grid and while points are not the primary concern with NASCAR’s win-and-in Chase formula, it is a good gauge of how well a driver and team is running. This was McMurray’s third result of 11th or better in the first six races of 2015.

Jeff Gordon incurred a penalty during his final pit stop and was forced to restart the race at the end of the lead lap with 35 laps remaining. He made a valiant charge through the pack and finished ninth in the STP 500.

Gordon was leading when the final caution flag waved for debris on the frontstretch. He was being caught by Matt Kenseth at the time and would have had a fierce battle, but a top-five finish would have elevated him to Chase contention. As the points currently stand, he is in a three-way battle for 16th on the charts, but trails Danica Patrick by a tie-breaker.

Kevin Harvick’s streak of top-two finishes came to an end at Martinsville. He ran that well in his last eight races, but failed to crack the top five in Sunday’s STP 500. He finished eighth.

Harvick challenged for the victory much of the afternoon and led the most laps at 154. Considering that Martinsville is his third-worst track in terms of average finishes, he had a much better performance than his statistics would indicate and remains the hottest driver on the circuit.

Danica Patrick earned the fifth top-10 of her career and came within one position of matching her best-ever finish when she crossed under the checkers seventh for the STP 500.

Patrick ran sixth for a while and even flirted with the top five in the closing laps. She had an error-free pit stop at the end and generally ran a flawless race. This was Patrick’s best Martinsville finish and puts her on fantasy owners’ radar screens for the next short, flat track race.

Martin Truex Jr. kept his top-10 streak alive with a sixth-place finish in the STP 500.

Truex spent about 300 laps in the top 10 and was inside the top 15 for another 100 or so. Martinsville was one of his biggest challenges in the first part of the season and now that the hurdle is clear, fantasy owners should place-and-hold him until he fails to crack the top 10.

Matt Crafton finishes second in Saturday's NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Martinsville Speedway.

He started the No. 88 Hormel/Menards Toyota Tundra 13th in the lineup for the Kroger 250. He led 100 laps of the 258 lap event. Besides being named the Mobil 1 Driver of the Race, Crafton took over the lead in the 2015 NCWTS championship standings. He leads Tyler Reddick (who finished fifth in the race) by two points.

David Ragan finished fifth in the STP 500 and earned his first top-five in his last 68 attempts. His latest two top-fives came on the restrictor-plate, superspeedway of Talladega, which means fantasy owners have to go all the way back to 2011 at Richmond—while Ragan still raced for Jack Roush—to find his last top-five on an unrestricted track.

Richmond is coming up in three weeks, so Ragan should be able to keep his momentum alive. If Ragan can earned top-15s at Texas and Bristol he will be a permanent fixture on fantasy rosters once more.

A fourth-place finish by Matt Kenseth in the STP 500 kept a current streak of four consecutive results of sixth or better at Martinsville alive for Matt Kenseth. He led 11 laps during the afternoon and challenged for the win near the end.

This strong run ended a two-race skid in 2015 in which Kenseth finished outside the top 15. All four Joe Gibbs Racing drivers ran strong at times and Kenseth probably looking forward to another short, flat track in Richmond in a couple of weeks.

Joey Logano came up two positions shy of having a perfect weekend. He won the Saturday Camping World Truck Series Kroger 250 from the pole and led the field to green in the Cup race as well. He led 108 laps, but had to overcome a spin and claw his way back into the top-five.

For the first time in his career, Logano has three consecutive top-10s at Martinsville. In fact, he has finished fifth or better in these three races and will be expected to contend for the victory this fall when the series returns to the bullring.

Brad Keselowski surged in the final laps of the STP 500 and closed on the bumper of Denny Hamlin. He tried to diamond the corner in the final turn and nipped the No. 11, but did not turn his competitor and settled for second.

This is Keselowski’s fifth-consecutive top-10 finish after struggling at Daytona to start the season. Last week’s Auto Club win put them in the Chase and now they are going for broke.